Overtime on his panhandling shift (http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/16243471.htm) - Jeff, 40, has heard it all before. Get a job, this that and the other. Yeah, yeah. But would they hire him? If they won’t, he wishes they’d just keep their mouths shut. I’ll wear your shoes and you wear mine, he often says. Easy to judge me, especially if you have comfortable shoes. That’s how he sees it.

One guy last year hired him on to his lawn crew. Jeff drove around and helped people decorate their houses with Christmas lights. No one knew he was homeless, and for a moment it seemed to him he was just like anybody else on a job waiting to punch out and go home.